Equipment for moving material on reels, in particular paper reels and the like

ABSTRACT

The invention pertains to an equipment for moving material on reels, in particular paper reels and the like; it comprises two reciprocally movable components, namely an inner component connected to the actual hoisting gear and an outer component, the lower section of these two components being intended to be inserted in the center passage of a material reel; means for reciprocal interlocking or releasing of the two components; means controlling reciprocal shifting of said components; means connected with said outer component and serving as a support for the system at the material reel to be moved when such system has been installed in the reel; freely rotating fingers fitted to the outer component and bearing against the wall of said passage while the material reel is being moved and means fitted to the inner component and controlling said fingers.

United States Patent Westerlund EQUIPMENT FOR MOVING MATERIAL ON [75] Inventor: Gunnar J. Westerlund, Brasschaat,

Belgium [73] Assignee: AB Hagglund & Soner,

Ornskoldsvik, Sweden [22] Filed: Nov. 28, 1973 [21] Appl. N0.: 419,779

[52] US. Cl 294/95; 294/116 [51] Int. Cl. B66c 1/54 [58] Field of Search 294/86.24, 86.25, 93, 94, 294/95, 97, 115, 116

[56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 559,932 5/1896 Clark 294/86.25 688,543 12/1901 294/86.25 976,325 11/1910 Wheeler et a]. 294/94 X 1,457,104 5/1923 Connor et al 294/116 2,507,577 5/1950 Reynolds 294/93 2,634,156 4/1953 Crimmel 294/95 3,408,101 10/1968 Savary 294/95 X [451 Sept. 16, 1975 3,423,120 1 1969 Dalglish 294/97 Primary ExaminerEvon C. Blunk Assistant Examiner-Johnny D. Cherry Attorney, Agent, or FirmBacon & Thomas 5 7 ABSTRACT The invention pertains to an equipment for moving material on reels, in particular paper reels and the like; it comprises two reciprocally movable components, namely an inner component connected to the actual hoisting gear and an outer component, the lower section of these two components being intended to be inserted in the center passage of a material reel; means for reciprocal interlocking or releasing of the two components; means controlling reciprocal shifting of said components; means connected with said outer component and serving as a support for the system at the material reel to be moved when such system has been installed in the reel; freely rotating fingers fitted to the outer component and bearing against the wall of said passage while the material reel is being moved and means fitted to the inner component and controlling said fingers.

3 Claims, 30 Drawing Figures PATENTEDSEP 1 61975 swears Fig Q6 Fig; 27

Big; 50 1 Fig? 'cumference and because of their quite considerable weight. Up to now such reels were exclusively moved by either gripping each reel at its circumference between two claws or by picking tip two reels simultaneously by pressing them one against another with the pressure force supplied by two claws fitted each into one of said passages provided in such reels. In the first case, the method applied features as its more important drawback the fact that the outer material layer or layers will practically always suffer damages which may hardly be looked upon as insignificant if we consider that one layer is 3.14 meter long when the diameter of the reel is 1 meter and that generally several layers have to be removed in case of damage.

In the second case, any possible damage will be inside so that such damage remains insignificant if we consider that the diameter involved is quite small while with this method, however, the reciprocal shifting of both reels presents a great risk and also the difficulty of bringing down these heavy reels in their right position on the right spot.

This invention concerns equipment for moving heavy material reels carrying, for instance, paper and by which equipment the drawbacks of existing installations will be totally eliminated.

For this purpose, such equipment will operate within said passage of such a reel, with each reel being picked up and brought down again without difficulty or risk and without damage or significant damage.

The equipment according to the invention will consist for this purpose of a combined unit with two reciprocally movable components, namely one inside component connected to the actual hoisting system and one outside component with the lowest section of both components fitted into the center passage of a material reel; devices for reciprocal interlocking or releasing of these two components; devices controlling reciprocal shifting of said outside component and serving as a support for the system at the material reel to be moved when such system has been installed in the reel; freely rotating fingers fitted to the outside component and bearing against the wall of said passage while the material reel is being moved as well as devices fitted-to the inside component and controlling said fingers.

With the purpose of further detailing the characteristic properties of the invention we show, hereinafter and without any intent of limitation, a preferred form of execution by referring to the drawings hereto-attached wherein:

FIG. I shows the front view. of an equipment according to the invention;

FIG. 2 shows a partial view according to pointer F2 in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 shows a view according to pointer F3 in FIG.

FIG. 4 shows a larger scale section according to line lV-IV in FIG. 2, but over the entire height of the equipment;

FIGS. 5 to 9 show sections, respectively according to lines V-V, VI-VI, VII-VII, VIII-VIII, and IX-IX in FIG. 4;

FIG. 10 shows a larger scale section according to line XX in FIG. 1;

FIGS. 11, 12 and 13 respectively show sections according to lines XI-XI, XIIXII and XIII-XIII in FIG. 10;

FIG. 14 shows a characteristic application position of the equipment according to the invention and installed in one material reel to be moved;

FIG. 15 shows a view according to pointer F15 in FIG. 14;

FIG. 16 shows a second characteristic application position of the equipment according to the invention;

FIG. 17 shows a view according to pointer F17 in FIG. 16;

FIG. 18 shows a larger scale section according to line XVIIIXVIII in FIG. 17;

FIG. 19 shows a section according to line XIXXIX in FIG. 18;

FIG. 20 shows a larger scale section according to line XX-XX in FIG. 16;

FIG. 21 shows a third characteristic application position of the equipment according to the invention;

FIG. 22 shows a view according to pointer F22 in FIG. 21;

FIG. 23 shows a fourth characteristic application position of the equipment according to the invention;

FIG. 24 shows a view according to pointer F24 in FIG. 23;

FIG. 25 shows a large scale view and a special form of execution of the part pointed out by F25 in FIG. 1;

FIG. 26 shows a lateral view of a finger according to the invention;

FIG. 27 shows a view according to pointer F27 in FIG. 26; FIGS. 28, 29 and 30 respectively show sections according to lines XXVIII-XXVIII, XXIX- -XXIX and XXX-XXX in FIG. 26.

In this form of execution, the equipment according to the invention consists of two main components, i.e., of an outside component 1 and an inside component 2.

The outside component 1 consists, in this case, of a tube 3, the lower extremity of which presents a reinforced section 4 while the upper end has been equipped with a preferably circular-shaped plate 5 theretoattaehed.

In the lower extremity of reinforced end 4 of tube 3 have been installed in reciprocally identical angle positions of three grooves 6 in which, by means of a pivot 7, a freely slewable finger 8 has been fitted with the lower and inwards oriented extremity of said finger featuring a bevelled edge 9.

The inside component 2 mainly consists of a bar 10 fitting loosely in said tube 3 while the lower end of said bar 10 features a smaller diameter extension 11 with said extension 11 passing through a bore 12 provided for this purpose in the lower reinforced section 4 of said outside component 1. The upper end of said bar 10 features two flattened and mutually parallel walls 13-14 to which have been fitted two plates or supports 15-16 while these supports 15-16 have been attached through the intermediate of a center plate 17 welded to support 16 to bar 10-11 by means of two bolts 18 and 19, the heads of which have been sunk into said plate 17.

Between plates and 16 have been fitted by means of pivots 20-21 two arms 22-23, of which the extremities located close to pivots 20-21 feature an eccentric or cam-shaped rounding 24 and 25 while their outer ends have been slewably coupled by means of pivots 26-27 to hooks 28-29 attached to the cable ends 30-31 of an appropriate hoisting unit.

Underneath said reinforced section 4 of tube 3, the free lower extremity of extension 11 of bar 10 has been provided with a cone 32 and in this execution said cone has not been directly coupled with extension 11 but through the intermediate of hook-shaped fingers 33 welded to extension 11. In this manner we achieve that cone 32 remains totally free with respect to bar 11 to which it will be coupled only through the intermediate of fingers 33 so that cone 32 may be made of very hard and exceptionally high grade material, which material can be attached only with much difficulty by welding on regular grade steel.

Above said plate 5 and in such a manner as to fit flatly in particular to the thickening of plate 17 of the inside component, the outside component 1 features a plate 34 welded to plate 5 and to which has been fitted, as shown in particular by FIGS. 11 to 13, a transverse position installed plate or bracket 35 featuring a projection 36 at the top. The total height of plate 35 is equivalent, except for projection 36, to the total height of plates 15-16-17. Above plate 35 and projection 36 we have a locking device 37 prolonged by a shaft 38 passing through a hole 39 in said extension 36, with said shaft 38 featuring behind extension 36 a thread 40 cooperating with a square nut 41. A spring 42 has been installed between the rear edge of locking device 37 and the front edge of said extension 36. The shift of locking device 37 will be controlled by suitably adjusting nut 41. A U-shaped cap 43 attached by means of two bolts 44 to said plate 35 has been installed above this locking device for the purpose of offering a guide for said locking device and in order to prevent nut 41 from turning. Above this cap 43 has been installed a second cap 45 attached in a freely slewable arrangement to said plate 35 by means of a pivot 46 with the upper wall of this cap 45 and, in particular, its lower edge 47 cooperating with the nose of locking device 37 in order to force back this latter as shown a.o. by FIG. 20 while a stop 48 has been installed between the side walls of cap 45 for the purpose of limiting the rear free position of cap 45.

Finally said cap is also connected with a counterweight 49 installed in such a manner as to try to maintain the selected position of the cap through the fact that the vertical line drawn through the center of gravity of said weight will rest within the pivot point of the cap for each of both extreme positions of said cap.

Both the application and the operation of the equipment according to the invention will be detailed hereinafter, in particular by means of FIGS. 14 to 24.

FIGv 14 shows the equipment according to the invention in the condition in which it will be whenever it freely rests on a material reel R by means of hoisting cables 30-31 through plate 5, in which position the equipment section located underneath plate 5 will be fitted into axial passage D generally provided for in a reel of this nature and formed either by the inner face of the material itself or by a cardboard tube, for example.

In this condition, cap 45 will occupy a rear position (see FIGS. 15 and 10) which will position locking device 37 under the influence of spring 42 at the front and thus with its nose above plate 17. By this we achieve a fixed connection between the reciprocally movable components 1-2 so that bringing down the equipment according to the invention will not affect the operation of the equipment whenever cap 45 is occupying the rearmost position.

Subsequently and in order to hoist reel R we adjust cap 45 to the position shown by FIGS. 17 and 20 by which we achieve that the upper wall and, in particular edge 47 of cap 45 will move the locking device 37 to the rear, i.e., remove said locking device from above plate 17.

Whenever we pull, in this condition, cables 30 and 31, then the arms or levers 22-23 will slew around their pivot points 20-21, in which case the eccentric or camshaped ends of said arms 24-25 will function as cams and thus lift the inside component 2 of the equipment as compared to the outside component 1 that through its weight will simply remain suspended with plate 5 at the top of the reel.

The relative and reciprocal shift thus performed where the inside component 2 and the outside component 1 are concerned will produce the result that cone 32 will be moved against fingers 8 as shown, in particular by FIGS. 16 and 18, with the effect that through cooperation of cone face 32 with the slanting lower extremity 9 of the three fingers 8, these fingers will be forced outwards against or into the material forming said passage D. It is obvious that depending on the hardness of this material and on the weight of the reel, the sharp edges or tops of fingers 8 will penetrate more or less into the wall of passage D of reel R with the result that at some specific moment, the effect of these fingers 8 on the reels will be just sufficient so that further hoisting of cables 30-31 will lift the reel as shown by FIG. 16. We note, that the reel is being gripped very efficiently, on one hand, and that it is kept perfectly horizontal through the presence of said plate 5 on the other hand.

Whenever this reel R is brought down as shown by FIG. 21, the weight of arms 30-31 will force them back to a horizontal position as compared to the outside component 1, in other words, plates 15-16-17 will again rest on horizontal plate 5 with the result that cone 32 will disengage from fingers 8 which still remain, however, in the material of reel R as shown in FIG. 21. Subsequently, cap 45 will be tilted back, i.e., shifted in such a manner that locking device 37 will return in its position above plate 17 so that components 1 and 2 will again form one unit. Hoisting the equipment by means of cables 30-31 will produce, at this specific moment. the result that this equipment will simply rise upwards and that fingers 8 will automatically return to their vertical position so that the equipment is ready to be applied to the next reel R.

FIGS. 14 and 16 show a dotted line drawing of an auxiliary equipment that mainly consists of a support 50 attached to one of the plates 15-16 with each side of this support fitted with spring or elastic elements 51 and 52 actually serving as buffer parts for arms 22-23.

We have experienced that the fingers detailed hereabove will be highly practical in numerous cases but offer adequate support for the various layers of paper and permit lifting and moving of said reels without damage.

For these reasons, the fingers may be shaped in such a manner that the outwards-oriented side may be designed in the form of a knife over a specific section of the finger length. FIGS. -30 show a construction of this nature.

In this construction, each finger features a knifeshaped section 53 with the cutting edge 54 turned outwards when in operating condition and in a vertical center line of said fingers with the cutting edge progressively increasing in thickness until the thickness of the finger has been reached.

The top end and the lower end of the progressively thickening cutting edge 54 is limited by surfaces 5556 and 5758 of which, at least and preferably surfaces 57 and 58 will be slanting as relative to the longitudinal center line of the finger concerned as well as, for instance, parallel with the slanting underface 9 thereof.

Underneath knife 53 we have provided the plane in which cutting edge 54 is to be found with two bevelled sections or planes 59 and 60 so that actually a sharp tip 61 is formed at the base of the finger.

Whenever a paper reel has to be lifted by means of the equipment fitted with improved design fingers, we hoist, after having installed the equipment in the hollow core of said paper reel or the like, the inside compo nent upwards in such a manner that the taper part will push against fingers 8 and force them outwards. Thus tips 61 of fingers 8 will at a specific moment penetrate the cardboard core of said paper reel and the cutting edge 54 of knife 53 will make part of fingers 8 penetrate through said core and into the innermost laps of paper to a depth of approximately 5 mm, for instance, where large reels of about 1.5 to 2,000 kg. are involved. At this specific moment the horizontal projection of the side faces of knife 53 form a support for the paper reel while the other faces 5758 limiting the lower edge of the knife 53 will form an additional support.

It is obvious that we obtain, in this manner, an equipment easily manufactured and operated, with which heavy reels of material such as paper may be lifted from their inside and brought down at any suitable place and in a correct manner without any damage or without significant damage to the reel involved.

It is just as obvious that this invention will in no way be limited to the form of execution described and shown by the drawings hereto-attached, and that such equipment may be materialized in various designs and measurements without exceeding the limits of the invention.

What l claim is:

1. Equipment for moving material on reels, more particularly paper reels and the like, provided with a passage therethrough, said equipment including:

hoisting means;

a hollow outer component having an upper part provided with a transverse supporting plate and lower part provided with a set of outwardly swingable fingers, said supporting plate being adapted to support said outercomponent on said reel when said outer component is introduced into said passage;

an inner component movable within said outer component and having an upper part provided with a lever mechanism and a lower part provided with means to control the angular displacement of said swingable fingers, said lever mechanism including two lever arms which are pivoted to said upper part of said inner component, said lever arms having first ends which are coupled to said hoisting means and other ends which are camshaped and cooperable with said supporting plate to displace said inner and outer components relative to each other in order to bring said control means in operative engagement with said swingable fingers or retract said control means from operative engagement with said fingers; and

means to lock and to release said inner and outer components against movement with respect to each other.

2. Equipment according to claim 1, wherein said upper part of said inner component is provided with two transverse plates mounted on opposite sides of the component, said leverarms being pivoted to said plates and being in alignment with each other when said inner and outer components are mutually locked by said locking means.

3. Equipment according to claim 2, wherein said locking means are mounted on said supporting plate and include a locking element which is under spring tension and which cooperates with the upper edge of said transverse plates and wherein a cap is mounted above said locking element, said cap having an edge which can be selectively moved to engage a nose of said locking element and thereby retract said locking element from said transverse plates.

, z g ggg UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICYE CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION Patent NO. 3,905, 636 Dated September 16, 1975 Inventor(s) GUNNAR J. WESTERLUND It is certified that error appears in the above-identified patent and that said Letters Patent are hereby corrected as shown below:

On the title page of the above patent, Column 1, following Item [21] insert:

Foreign Application Priority Data 0 November 30, 1972 Belgium.............792,088

Signed and Scaled this third of February 1976 [SEAL] Arrest:

RUTH C. MASON C. MARSHALL DANN Atlestl'ng Officer Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks 

1. Equipment for moving material on reels, more particularly paper reels and the like, provided with a passage therethrough, said equipment including: hoisting means; a hollow outer component having an upper part provided with a transverse supporting plate and lower part provided with a set of outwardly swingable fingers, said supporting plate being adapted to support said outer component on said reel when said outer component is introduced into said passage; an inner component movable within said outer component and having an upper part provided with a lever mechanism and a lower part provided with means to control the angular displacement of said swingable fingers, said lever mechanism including two lever arms which are pivoted to said upper part of said inner component, said lever arms having first ends which are coupled to said hoisting means and other ends which are cam-shaped and cooperable with said supporting plate to displace said inner and outer components relative to each other in order to bring said control means in operative engagement with said swingable fingers or retract said control means from operative engagement with said fingers; and means to lock and to release said inner and outer components against movement with respect to each other.
 2. Equipment according to claim 1, wherein said upper part of said inner component is provided with two transverse plates mounted on opposite sides of the component, said lever arms being pivoted to said plates and being in alignment with each other when said inner and outer components are mutually locked by said locking means.
 3. Equipment according to claim 2, wherein said locking means are mounted on said supporting plate and include a locking element which is under spring tension and which cooperates with the upper edge of said transverse plates and wherein a cap is mounted above said locking element, said cap having an edge which can be selectively moved to engage A nose of said locking element and thereby retract said locking element from said transverse plates. 